Camping Trip from Hell? pt26

Well by now we were the masters of the routine. We're on the road heading to Cheyenne and falling back into our routine again. The kids are watching TV and my wife is double checking to make all the gear is still stowed properly. She has become a master of camping on the move by this point so it was quick work for her. Me, I'm just watching the miles slip past my window while keeping an ear on everyone else.

By now the songs were over, mostly due to our bad singing, but things were going pretty good over all. The little ones were napping and I suggested to my wife that she should take the opportunity to nap as well. She didn't need to hear it twice before she was in the back, laying down, and propping her arm up on a pillow. It wasn't long before we reached Cheyenne. I had hoped to send some time there exploring but after looking at the maps and calender we knew it wasn't a good idea. We only had a few more days until the container arrived with our stuff and we needed to be there to meet it at the storage unit I had reserved.

Storage unit? yup I rented one because I knew that we didn't want to move into a house right away but instead go home for a visit since my wife hadn't been home for about 3 years at this point. So anyway we passed through Cheyenne, looking around as much as we could while still staying on the road. It was still early afternoon so stopping for dinner was out of the question at this point especially since we were still overstuffed from lunch.

After leaving Cheyenne we quickly found the Colorado border and knew Fort Collins would be coming up before long. I was surprised at how close things seemed to be especially after driving through Canada and going days with out running into a town. We had thought to stay in Fort Collins but we arrived there so quickly that I said I wanted to push on to Denver. Of course that made my wife crack jokes about my liking John Denver music to which I put on some "Rocky Mountain High" to torture them all with.

My wife did ask me if we might make Colorado Springs today and I replied that it was possible but had to know why. She told me that she'd like to see the Air Force Academy if we could and I agreed that it was fine with me. Things had settled back down after we left Fort Collins and the rest of the trip to Denver was pretty quiet. Unfortunately that was not to last.

It soon became apparent that we were going to hit Denver at a bad time, a really bad time, called Rush Hour. Now if you've ever lived in a large city Rush Hour is a nightmare. Now imagine you're driving a 30ft RV in said rush hour. Then imagine that your kids have finally had enough traveling and decide to start bouncing off the walls about the same time that the traffic really starts getting heavy. Yup...that's me.

I did get to look at the new Denver Broncos stadium but only because I was driving right for it. Other than that Denver is a blur to me because of watching the idiot drivers and hollering at the kids to sit down and be quiet all the while reading the signs to make sure we were heading the right way and not circling back to Boulder or some such. My wife was fighting a losing battle with the kids until she found the duct tape again and threatened to have me stop in the road and tape them together. The look of horror on my oldest ones face was priceless. In no way did she want to be linked to my second child because my second one knows how to really push her buttons. Usually it's kind of funny to watch but now wasn't the time. Finally the kids settled down and let me finish getting through Denver in relative peace.

Once we had finally gotten out into the outskirts and the road went from 6 lanes back to 2 lanes I started looking around but really couldn't see much except that it was getting dark. I asked the wife to start looking in the book for campgrounds and we'd hit Colorado Springs in the morning. After several minutes had gone by with her not calling out something I knew it was going to be bad.

Eventually she did find some places that a RV could manage but none of them were close and I wasn't backtracking for nothing. We finally settled on a KOA in Pueblo for us to spend the night at. I wasn't thrilled but since the kids were still behaving somewhat and I was getting closer to Colorado Springs by the minute I agreed. Shortly after that my wife served some sandwiches and left over fries for dinner and I was still clicking along to Colorado Springs.

Not long after eating we arrived in Colorado Springs and realized that is was kind of small so we'd be through it pretty quick. The kids were starting to nod off so I had the wife come up front so she could at least see the Academy even though we knew it was too late to stop. I did agree however to put it on our list as a priority for our next trip up north. We had gone most of the way through Springs when we say the exit for the Academy. I decided we could at least pull off and look at the campus for a minute so off we went. Unfortunatly about then my youngest decided he was dying and needed to scream at the top of his lungs for a while. My wife tried her best but she couldn't get him to calm down until after I had gotten back on the Interstate and was halfway to Pueblo but he did finally calm down. To this day we don't know what caused the outbust and probabily never will.

The rest of the trip to Pueblo was uneventful until I found the turn off for the KOA. I exited off the Interstate and at the end of the ramp I realized I had no idea where to go because none of the signs listed the KOA or any other campground either. Here I am sitting at the end of the ramp, calling to my wife who had dozed off, trying to figure out where to go. When she came up front with the book it proved to be very unhelpful. It didn't really give good directions but it did say I needed to trun East and then take a road North about a mile down.

I love the Boy Scouts. Because of attending the meetings when I was a kid I made sure to pack things like waterproof matches, a hatchet, and a compass. Boy did that compass pay for itsself this night. I left the wheel and went to the back to get the compass and started getting my bearings. I then turned left and headed down the road looking for a road going North. It was slow going but after coming around a blind curve we saw the road and a KOA sign so we knew we were good for the night. It was after hours so I pulled up to the office and looked at the list of open sopts. There was one just down from the office and it was a pull-thru so we were golden. I quickly filled out the slip and went to our spot to hook up for the night. While I'm doing that my wife is getting the beds ready but then decided to leave the kids at the table bed since they were all sleeping already. She then went to the back ond got ready for sleep while I looked over everything to make sure we were set for the night. I clicked on the AC and headed for bed hopeing that the next day would turn out better.